“God! What a character,” an upbeat Bridges said last week as he met with the media at a Beverly Hills hotel to talk about the role that earned John Wayne his only Oscar, for playing the clapped-out marshal in the 1969 original film.

Bearded, his long hair swept back, Bridges is still bearing some vestiges of the 25 pounds he gained to play broken-down country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart last year — a performance that earned him his first Best Actor statuette after four previous nominations. A small tummy can be seen beneath his untucked dark striped shirt when he pushes back from the table.

Bridges is riding high with two big-budget studio movies opening this month — reprising his Kevin Flynn character in the sci-fi flick Tron: Legacy, which opened Friday, and True Grit, out Dec. 22. Plus he hosts Saturday Night Live Saturday and is back in the studio working on a new album with Crazy Heart's T-Bone Burnett with an eye to touring.

At age 61, Bridges is a Baby Boomer-vintage Hollywood “it” boy.

He's earning early kudos for playing Cogburn, as is his diminutive co-star Hailee Steinfeld, 14, an unknown actress who plays Mattie Ross, the determined youngster at the heart of the story who hires Cogburn to help her hunt down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the dim-witted hired hand who killed her father.

They're joined by a gabby, self-absorbed Texas Ranger named LaBeouf (Matt Damon, who calls himself “LeBeef”) in their quest.

Bridges admitted he hesitated before taking the job after Joel and Ethan Coen — whom he'd previously worked with playing slacker hero The Dude in the 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski — approached him.

“I was curious why these guys wanted to make that movie again and Ethan corrected me and said, ‘No, we're not making that movie, we're making the book as if there was no movie ever made,'” said Bridges. Not being familiar with Charles Portis' 1968 American novel, Bridges read it. “And then I saw what they were talking about. It's such a wonderful book.”

When Bridges talked to the Star this time last year, he'd just signed on to do True Grit and said — all references to The Dude playing The Duke aside — he had no interest in patterning his performance after Wayne's semi-comic one.

“I'm not approaching it that way,” he said then. “I'm taking the tip from the brothers ... I've seen the movie but I'm not going to study the Duke's moves.”

Now he's been nominated a Screen Actors Guild award for the role. Bridges said he helped form Cogburn's character first from the book, but got an extra nudge from his wardrobe, thanks to costume designer Mary Zophres, who also came up with The Dude's bedraggled look for The Big Lebowski.

“Mary has these wonderful books that she brings out ... and the character starts to fall into place,” said Bridges.

“There comes a time when a character starts to tell you what it wants. That's a wonderful time when it happens.”

Observant moviegoers may notice this Cogburn's eye patch has even switched sides. Wayne wore it on the left — as in the book. But Bridges went right. Bridges laughs when asked about the change.

“We put it on the right and it felt good. We put it on the left eye, not so good and the right eye, ‘What do you think guys?' And we went back and forth like that.”

But the comparisons Bridges and the Coens won't be able to escape from the 1969 version is the pivotal dramatic scene where Cogburn takes the reins in his mouth and rides full tilt, guns blazing in each hand, at four outlaws (including one played by Canada's Barry Pepper) to save Mattie.

The heart-pounding scene differs in the 2010 version because, unlike Wayne, Bridges did all his own riding — a risky proposition.

“I remember that day well and right at the beginning of the day, Joel coming over to me and saying, ‘What do you think about really trying this deal?' and I said, ‘Oh, well, that's kind of interesting.' ”

But the brothers had faith in their star and knew he could handle himself on the right horse.

“I felt a little anxious, a little fear,” Bridges admitted of the prospect of riding with his reins clamped in his teeth, firing pistols at the bad guys.

“And so we did it that way and it wasn't as tough as I thought,” Bridges said with a sly grin. “Actually, it was kind of cool.”

“It's not a simple thing, which is why you didn't see that in the original movie,” Joel added of the scene, which took several days to shoot. In the original, Wayne appears to be on horseback in close shots done in front of a movie screen running background images, a forerunner of CGI technology.

“There were things that Jeff had to do that were really difficult to accomplish but it was also very complicated in terms of (camera) coverage,” explained Joel. The pair relied on Oscar-nominated director of photography Roger Deakins, who worked with them on O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Putting on Cogburn's battered coat and boots to ride out to the “Indian Territory” also reminded Bridges of the days when his father, the late actor Lloyd Bridges, would come home after a day working on a period film while still in costume.

“He'd appear at the front door all dressed up in the cowboy clothes, so I guess there's some of my dad in there,” he said.

Bridges, who just learned he is about to be a grandfather, is clearly a family man and often speaks of his father with great affection. And his enduring love of his wife, Susan Geston, the young hotel worker he met and fell in love with while filming Rancho Deluxe in Montana in 1974, helps keep him grounded, thanks to one of Hollywood's longest marriages, the father of three has said.

“With Sue, it was love at first sight and I am still madly in love with her,” Bridges told the Star last year. “I didn't think everything would get better but every aspect of our marriage has gotten groovier and every time I meet one of those challenges and you can grow from it and not let it crush you, your relationship becomes more precious.”

The Bridges family acting dynasty is a respected one in Hollywood. Father Lloyd made more than 150 movies — including western classic High Noon — and brother Beau shared the screen with Jeff in The Fabulous Baker Boys.

The day after the True Grit news conference, over post-lunch coffee at Spago Beverly Hills, chef-owner Wolfgang Puck said the family have been regulars at his restaurant since the 1970s.

“I was so happy when Jeff won the Oscar,” he said. “They are a wonderful family. His father, Lloyd Bridges, and brother Beau came in here a lot. Their mother (Dorothy) ran that family like a German grandmother.”

Perhaps Bridges' loyalty to traditional values helped him come up with his idea of what it means to have true grit.

“True grit? I believe this is my definition: It is seeing one thing through to the end and that's a good thing. I aspire to that.”

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